Three deputy directors named within Correctional Institutions Division

Three new deputy directors were named recently within TDCJ’s Correctional Institutions Division (CID).

CID Director Nathaniel Quarterman announced the promotions of Region V Director Rodney Cooper to deputy director for Prison & Jail Operations and of Classification and Records Assistant Director Pamela Williams to deputy director for Support Operations. Correctional Training Director David Stacks was promoted to deputy director for Management Operations.

“They are veterans who have worked on units and served as wardens,” said Quarterman. “They bring a great deal of experience in the field of criminal justice to their positions. All are committed to doing the right thing for the agency and in treating employees right.”

Cooper is a 28-year veteran of TDCJ who succeeds Quarterman in his deputy director position. Cooper began his long TDCJ career in 1978 as a correctional officer at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville and steadily rose through the security ranks before being named senior warden of both the Wallace Unit and Ware Transfer Facility in Colorado City in January 1994. He moved to the Telford Unit in New Boston as senior warden in May 2000 and was promoted to director of CID’s Region V Office in Plainview in February 2002.

As Region V director, Cooper oversaw 15 facilities housing approximately 25,000 offenders and served as a liaison between the unit wardens and senior CID administrators. Longtime Clements Unit Senior Warden Bruce Zeller was promoted to replace him as director of the Region V Office.

Williams is a Huntsville native who began her career in 1981 as a district parole officer with the Board of Pardons and Paroles. She joined TDCJ in 1984 and worked as a unit chief of classification for seven years. Williams was promoted to senior warden in 1992 and spent the next nine years overseeing the supervision of both male and female offenders at four different facilities. In October 2001, she was promoted to assistant director for Classification and Records, overseeing the implementation of an external and internal classification system for the state.

Williams attended Huntsville public schools and earned a bachelor’s degree in criminology and Corrections from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville in 1981.

Stacks has 27years with TDCJ, beginning his career as a correctional officer at the Byrd Unit. He was promoted through the security ranks at the Ramsey, Scott and Ferguson units and served as senior warden at the Torres, Darrington and Eastham units prior to his promotion to director of Correctional Training in September 2005. As senior warden, Stacks led the Darrington Unit to its first accrediation by the American Correctional Association. At Eastham, he instituted the first HIV peer instructional initiative that has since been adopted throughout the agency. His introduction of a number of voluntary rehabilitation and reentry programs at Eastham led to his selection as the Correctional Administrator of the Year at the Governor’s Volunteer Awards in April.

The Survey of Organizational Excellence (SOE) is administered by the University of Texas School of Social Work. This survey is a tool utilized by the agency to obtain employee attitudes regarding various workplace issues that ultimately impact the quality of our customer service.

All TDCJ and Windham School District employees were encouraged to participate in the SOE that was distributed in January 2006. Employees had the option of completing and submitting the survey online or completing the paper copy distributed to each employee. The agency’s survey response rate increased from the previous rate of 17 percent to 28 percent for 2006. Of those who responded, over 1,800 were non-unit assigned staff and almost 9,400 were unit staff.

Survey responses projected a higher than average retention. Eighty-five percent of respondents indicated they expect to be working for TDCJ in two years.

Additional information about the survey is available from our website at the following address: www.tdcj.state.tx.us. Click on Employment from the navigational border and select Human Resources from the dropdown list. A link is available to the Survey of Organizational Excellence Results from the Human Resources page.